Monday, January 18, 2016

Angelic Judgment at the Miskatonic

From the sky we fell, the Children of Humanity, the eternal angels, to look upon this world and know pure joy: our search, at least, was to be fulfilled.

My aeroshell tumbled and sloughed, fiery plasma scorched and burnt. Shedding, slowing as I sped to the ground. The flames of my passage heralded my arrival upon this world. At last my aeroshell split and shattered, throwing my body to the winds, to be battered at by this alien sky.

Slowing, slowing, ever slowing to my body's terminal velocity, 60 m/s. The air rushed by, never breathed by humanity, never to be breathed by me. By us. It was a thrill noone had ever felt before. The first upon this world, this world we will see and experience and embrace first.

The ground rushed up like the angry fist of gravity and, I, my defiant immortal self, decided I had no wish to meet such sound and fury. I deployed my chute, the ghostly transient thing it was, and wafted down to the ground.

What I beheld when I touched down lightly, upon kythanil firma.

Giant autotrophs, twisted, jointed and jostling, jockeyed for their place in the sun. They fought to rid themselves, their fleshy stalks swaying sinuous way, of the parachute now covering their photosynthetic caps. I stood awestruck and amazed at their alluringly abhorrent alienness.

There were cries from amongst them, their hearts, slow and steadily, sadly increased in their attempts to rid themselves of the chute. They were in dire distress. They had it it seemed or risked death. The ability to move, to traverse, cursed them with needs for light beyond mere terrestrial plants.

I took pity and signaled the chute to disintegrate, dust falling down and littering the ground which I stood. The motes showered me and the alien autotrophs alike.

For a moment more, I stood and observed. My landing scared anything other than the sickeningly slow autotrophs away. If I wished to know this world, I would have to move on.

And move on I did, cautiously and carefully stepping over and through the autotrophs tentacular roots, avoiding their contact, not fearing anything other than delay. They could not harm me, but I'd rather not be entangled. I traveled and began to hear, and see, the strangeness of Kythanil.

Flying ribbons chased by darting daemons, small and furious. No anthromorphy here. No mistaking this as some mere human's nightmare. Those old gods, risen and mighty, could not have dredged what I saw before me from their limited, yet indomitable subconscious.

I arrived at a creek and pinged my compatriots. None had taken the name as yet and I dubbed it the Miskatonic. It was far lesser than what many might attribute it to be. Yet filled with horrors, I dreamt, that many did not wish to acknowledge.

Almost on cue, arising from the shocking depths of what I had taken to be a mere creek, a creature arose. A mortal human, from ages past might have gone mad from the writhing mass that emerged before me. Or at least triggered their flight or fight. The gods humanity had become had made me and mine of sterner stuff and I stood before the rising wriggling being before me.

Terror, horror or fiend, or mere herbivore, I did not know. It was not of Earth and could not be judged by terrestrial standards of beauty.

I, however, an angel of the Lords of Earth, looked upon it and saw that it was good.